Digital Technology
Miles Berry | @mberry �31 January 2018
These slides: bit.ly/researchingtech
Anything can happen in the next 90 minutes...
Teachers as researchers
Ed Tech
Researching technology in education
Keep taking the tablets?
Teachers as researchers
Knowledge creating schools
The 'tinkering' teacher is an individualised embryo of institutional knowledge creation.
When such tinkering becomes more systematic, more collective and explicitly managed, it is transformed into knowledge creation…
Transfer is difficult to achieve for it involves far more than telling or simply providing information…
This is most easily achieved when a teacher tinkers with information derived from another's professional practice.
Hargreaves, 1999
Teaching as a design science
Teachers acting as design scientists would observe four basic precepts, to
Evidence informed education
I think there is a huge prize waiting to be claimed by teachers. By collecting better evidence about what works best, and establishing a culture where this evidence is used as a matter of routine, we can improve outcomes for children, and increase professional independence.
Goldacre, 2013
EEF DIY Toolkit
DIY evaluation is useful for three reasons:
Evidence based teaching?
We can use evidence to improve what we do on a day-to-day basis. It is teachers who are taking the lead in this - who are putting evidence at the centre of their profession, their schools, their classrooms, their teaching. It is evidence that will liberate the teaching profession from the shackles that I believe they have laboured under for too long… We have challenged the orthodoxies that have undermined the teaching profession; and we are working to put evidence right at the heart of our education system to free teachers from having to kow-tow to such orthodoxies.
Big questions
Is teaching an art or a science?
Is it a craft or a technology?
Can we ask ‘what works?’ or can we only speak of ‘what works for me, in my school, with my pupils’? Or is there some middle way?
Is the truth out there?
Positivism
Constructivism
Barr Greenfield, 1975
Qualitative research
Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2011 p 219
Berry, 2006
Ed Tech
Gove, 2012
Play from 1’27” to 2’12”
Technology
The systematic application of scientific and other organized knowledge to practical tasks
Galbraith, 1967
The academy
Concerns with ed tech
The inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility of his own inventions to the users of them. For this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. They will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.
The textbook
The slate
Engagement!
. . . prevents idleness, and procures that great desideratum of schools, quietness, by commanding attention . . . Some Studies require a degree of mental exertion, that may or may not be made, and yet the omission remain undetected; but this is so visible, that every boy’s attention to his lesson may be seen on his slate; and detection immediately follows idleness, or indifferent performance!
1:1
Instead of hanging the slates to nails on the wall, every boy has a slate numbered according to his number in the class, and fastened to a nail on the desk at which he sits. By this means all going in and out for slates is avoided. But, if slates are suspended to nails on the walls, the class must go from their seats to fetch them; and the same to replace them, when they have done work.
Kay, 1982 via Watters, 2015
The web
TIY
The Internet is one vast educational tool. It's ideal for autodidacts and lends itself perfectly to interactive learning via communities of interest... the Internet is a dream to anyone committed to securing or providing an education.
Tablets
Phones
Steve Jobs, 1980
From 9m8s to 10m24s
Raspberry Pi, BBC micro:bit
But why?
Answers on a google form please…
bit.ly/18edtech
To learn IT
As a learning tool
As a teaching tool
Researching technology in education
On the up?
In the school year 2014/15 schools forecast their ICT expenditure will be higher in cash terms than at any other time on record. Investment in hardware replacement, peripherals, software and technical support will reach £14,220 per primary school and £65,570 in each secondary school.
BESA, 2013
Challenging provision
In many schools planning was not systematic and there was very little or no evaluation of the impact of previous ICT spending. There were very few examples of schools being fully aware of the consequences of the depreciation of their current ICT estate.
Teaching first?
In the last five years UK schools have spent more than £1 billion on digital technology. From interactive whiteboards to tablets, there is more digital technology in schools than ever before. But so far there has been little evidence of substantial success in improving educational outcomes.
Schools spent £487 million on ICT equipment and services in 2009-2010. But this investment has not yet resulted in radical improvements to learning experiences or attainment. No technology has an impact on learning on its own right; impact depends on how it is used.
The impact of ICT in schools
The literature contains a great deal of persuasive argument that ICT is valuable in improving learning, teaching, motivation and achievement It is not easy to determine causal relationships between a single initiative and any observed changes in behaviour or achievement.
Education and technology
Digital technology will not automatically support and enhance learning processes unless some thought is given to the ‘goodness of fit’ between the learning task and the learning technology. Many debates over technology and learning appear to be driven by wider beliefs of what constitutes ‘good’ or ‘desirable’ learning.
Digital Natives
What we may actually be seeing is a generation where learners at the computer behave as butterflies fluttering across the information on the screen, touching or not touching pieces of information (i.e., hyperlinks), quickly fluttering to a next piece of information, unconscious to its value and without a plan.
Limited impact
Despite the pervasiveness of information and communication technologies (ICT) in our daily lives, these technologies have not yet been as widely adopted in formal education. But where they are used in the classroom, their impact on student performance is mixed, at best. In fact, PISA results show no appreciable improvements in student achievement in reading, mathematics or science in the countries that had invested heavily in ICT for education.
So what does work?
PISA: Spiezia 2010
A disconnect?
Schools are first and foremost regulatory environments – not least in terms of their dependence upon compulsion of attendance and subsequent coercion of behaviour
The introduction of a ‘networking logic’ to the organisation of social relations is seen to support an open (re)configuration of society and a corresponding under-determination of organisational structures
And yet...
“School systems need to find more effective ways to integrate technology into teaching and learning to provide educators with learning environments that support 21st century pedagogies and provide children with the 21st century skills they need to succeed in tomorrow’s world. Technology is the only way to dramatically expand access to knowledge. To deliver on the promises technology holds, countries need to invest more effectively and ensure that teachers are at the forefront of designing and implementing this change”
Visible learning
The biggest effects on student learning occur when teachers become learners of their own teaching, and when students become their own teachers.
Hattie, 2008
How effective is digital technology?
Overall, studies consistently find that digital technology is associated with moderate learning gains (on average an additional four months). However, there is considerable variation in impact. Evidence suggests that technology should be used to supplement other teaching, rather than replace more traditional approaches. It is unlikely that particular technologies bring about changes in learning directly, but different technology has the potential to enable changes in teaching and learning interactions, such as by providing more effective feedback for example, or enabling more helpful representations to be used or simply by motivating students to practise more.
Things to think about...
Overall trends
Higgins et al, 2012
Visible learning
The use of computers is more effective when:
Hattie, 2008
Eight strategies
Learning from experts
Learning from others
Learning through making
Learning through exploring
Learning through inquiry
Learning through practising
Learning from assessment
Learning in and across settings
Proof, promise and potential?
We have shown how different technologies can improve learning by augmenting and connecting proven learning activities
This potential will only be realised through innovative teaching practice
If we are to make progress we need to clarify the nature of the goal we want to satisfy through future innovation
Keep taking the tablets?
iPads and young children...
Smart classrooms, 2010
Queensland Govt, 2010
iPads in Scotland
Supports the curriculum
Transformative tech
Personal ownership
Leads to changes in professionalism and pedagogy
Parental engagement
University of Hull, 2012
iPads in education
Rationales matter
Accessibility, ease of use, increased productivity, collaboration/cooperation, personalisation, seamless learning, access to content, real-time monitoring, assessment, CPD
Clark and Luckin, 2013
Tablets for schools
Results suggest that long-term use of the Tablet has a profound effect on pedagogy, and that pupils benefit from having access to content both at school and at home. Pupils appear to have greater engagement with learning, collaboration with peers increases, and teachers can monitor individual progress effectively
Clarke et al 2013
Before iPad was introduced ... about 35 percent of her students entered first grade reading above grade level. With iPad, 100 percent of her students have been reading above grade level for two years running.
In a randomized comparison study during the 2011–2012 school year, eight kindergarten classrooms used iPad for nine weeks, while eight kindergarten classrooms did not. Students using iPad outperformed the non-iPad students in every literacy measure they were tested on.
First year of iPad use at this Title 1 Pre-K through 5 school resulted in jump of nearly 13 percent to 72.1 percent in end-of-grade composite test scores that include reading, math, and science.
The number of students at “advanced” level math is 175 percent higher at four iPad one-to-one middle schools than similar schools without iPad. The number of students at “advanced” level of reading is 35 percent higher, based on state assessments
Hmm...
At home?
“So, your kids must love the iPad?” I asked Mr. Jobs, trying to change the subject. The company’s first tablet was just hitting the shelves. “They haven’t used it,” he told me. “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
Only boys use Android...
The school gave us all iPads, and all we ever use them for is Instagram and SnapChat and YouTube. Everyone's connected all the time. They must have thought it would help us with learning but it's completely backfired. They even tried to change us to a new wifi signal but we knew it would block off lots of content, so we all carried on using the old one.
Lucy, 12�Green, 2013
The LA iPad roll out
There is no body of evidence that iPads will increase math and reading scores on state standardized tests. There is no evidence that students using iPads (or laptops or desktop computers) will get decent paying jobs after graduation.
… No hard data on how often the devices were used, in what situations, and under what conditions. Nor mention of data on student outcomes.
Cuban, 2013
Rosendale Primary
Rosendale Primary, in south London, won a £253,000 grant for the research which will involve 1,400 pupils in 24 schools in London, Essex and Manchester.
Rosendale pupils use tablet computers to photograph their work and tag it with notes about how well they learned. Children at the school are encouraged to reflect on every piece of work or unit of learning. They are asked to think about which bits went well, what they struggled with and what they might need to do to improve when they next revisit the subject.
The research project aims to test whether the strategy actually improves pupils' attainment. It will be tested at 24 two-form-entry schools, one form will carry on as normal, the other will record and reflect on their learning using digital note-taking. Children will be tested at the start and finish of the project to measure their abilities and the results evaluated at Manchester University.
BBC, 1/11/13
So, how did that go?
Pupils who participated in ReflectED made an average of four months’ additional progress in maths compared to pupils who did not.
Pupils who participated in ReflectED made an average of two months’ less progress in reading compared to pupils who did not.
Ooh. Can I see the analysis?
1:1?
Study 2 uses a quasi-experimental design and draws on student achievement data from 352 kindergarteners to understand the effect of 1:1 iPads, versus shared iPads and no iPads, on literacy achievement for one year of learning. Results from Hierarchical Linear Models (HLM) suggest that shared iPads—where children primarily engaged with the device in pairs—significantly out-performed peers who used 1:1 iPads or no iPads on end-of-year literacy achievement, controlling for baseline test scores and student demographic characteristics.
Meta analysis
This study performed a meta-analysis and research synthesis of the effects of integrated mobile devices in teaching and learning, in which 110 experimental and quasiexperimental journal articles published during the period 1993-2013 were coded and analyzed. Overall, there was a moderate mean effect size of 0.523 for the application of mobile devices to education.
Yao-Ting Sung, Kuo-En Chang, Tzu-Chien Liu, 2015
Systematic review
While we hypothesise how tablets can viably support children in completing a variety of learning tasks (across a range of contexts and academic subjects), the fragmented nature of the current knowledge base, and the scarcity of rigorous studies, make it difficult to draw firm conclusions. The generalisability of evidence is limited and detailed explanations as to how, or why, using tablets within certain activities can improve learning remain elusive.
Questions?
@mberry
m.berry@roehampton.ac.uk
These slides: bit.ly/researchingtech